Guy Kawasaki is the legendary founder of Garage Technology Ventures, a VC firm in Silicon Valley, and the former chief evangelist of Apple Computer. He has founded two software companies and has helped more than 100 companies raise venture capital.

This list is for entrepreneurs who want to avoid getting bogged down in theory and unnecessary details. My assumption is that your goal is to change the world--not study it. If your attitude is "Cut the crap and just tell me what I need to do," then this checklist is for you.

The Art of Starting

Do you make meaning? Great companies change the world by fighting the status quo, inertia and ignorance. They make people's lives better, fix the bad and perpetuate the good. Mediocre and unsuccessful companies start out only to make money. Here's the acid test: If your company never existed, would it matter to the world?

Do you have a company mantra? Forget a mission statement. Think mantra--three words, tops. What three words capture the essence of what you do and why you exist? Great example: Mary Kay's mantra is "Enriching women's lives."

Are you typing or prototyping? You're spending too much time with Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Prototype and prospect instead. Don't have the funds to do this? There's no magical solution for this Catch-22, but the lack of funds never prevents a true entrepreneur from starting.

Have you defined a business model that is credible, simple and specific? This is a question that the entire high-tech sector skipped during the dotcom days. The salient questions are: Who's got your money in his or her pocket? And how will you get it?

The Art of Positioning

Can you describe your product or service without using acronyms or jargon? If it takes five years of industry experience to begin to understand what you do, you've got a problem. Your parents should be able to explain your product or service. Your grandparents should be able to use it.

Are you occupying the high ground? Focus on what you can do for your customers, not on what your competition can't. Nobody buys anything to help a company kill its competition, so resist the temptation to trash other companies.

Are you seizing a niche for your product or service? The ultimate business position is to provide a unique product or service that customers really need. This is called filling a niche. You can be unique in terms of features, service, pricing or location, but don't try to be all things to all people.

Does your positioning pass the "opposite test"? You claim your product is fast, secure and easy to use. Does the competition say its product is slow, dangerous and hard to use? If not, your positioning will only work in a vacuum--and a vacuum, no pun intended, sucks.

Pitching, Business Plans, Recruiting & Raising Money

The Art of Pitching

Can you explain what
your product or service does in 60 seconds? Buildings are
getting taller, but elevators are getting faster. Most investors
have a short attention span for elevator pitches, so the longer it
takes to explain, the less likely your pitch will succeed.

Are you answering
the little man? Imagine there's a little man sitting on
your shoulder. Every time you say something in a pitch, he asks,
"So what?" For example: You spew out a line about your
"open-source, client-server, Java-based technology." You
think you've shocked and awed, but your audience is wondering,
"So what?"

Have you practiced
so many times that you're not embarrassed to watch a video of
yourself? You need to give a pitch approximately 25 times to
get good at it. Don't think you'll "rise to the
occasion" when you're in front of investors, because you
won't.

When you're
making a pitch, have you distilled your presentation to just 10
slides? Trust me: Your curve-jumping, paradigm-shifting,
patent-pending way to sell dog food online doesn't merit 50
slides. The crucial topics are the problem you're solving, your
solution, the business model, the underlying magic, marketing and
sales, the competition, the management team, projections and key
metrics, and current status.

Is the smallest font
you use 30 points? Divide the age of the oldest person in
the audience by two to get the optimal font size. The number
you'll come up with is approximately 30 points. Can't fit
everything on the slides in 30-point font? Then you're using
too much text.

The Art of Writing a
Business Plan

If you threw away
page three and beyond of your business plan, would it still attract
investors? The executive summary, which is the first two
pages of your business plan, is the most important part of the
document. If you do this well, investors will read the rest. If you
don't, then nothing in the next 18 pages will pull them
in.

Is your business
plan longer than 20 pages? The optimal length of a business
plan is 20 pages. You're mistaken if you think investors care
that your 50-page financial model shows you'll spend $65.25 on
pencils in the fifth month of the fourth year.

Do you provide key
metrics as well as numbers? Let's face it: You picked
revenue numbers out of the air. The key metrics of your
business--for example, the number of customers, installations and
locations--are just as important to investors. Hint: If you
indicate that you're going to close 50 percent of the Fortune
500 companies as your customers in the first year, you're
hallucinating.

Did you build your
financial projections from the bottom up or the top down?
Top-down projections are easy because 1 percent of a huge market is
always an exciting number. But you're building a business from
the bottom up, so forecast that way: How many sales reps will you
have? How many sales calls can they make? What percentage will be
successful?

The Art of Recruiting

Are the people
you're hiring infected with a love of your product or
service? I believe this is at least as important as a
candidate's educational background and work experience. Heck,
my work experience was counting diamonds for a jewelry manufacturer
when I went to work for Apple Computer as its software evangelist.
But I did love Macintosh.

Have you crossed the
psychological barrier of hiring people who are better than
yourself? A players hire A+ players. By contrast, B players
hire C players. C players hire D players. Pretty soon, you're
surrounded by Z players, and this is called "The Bozo
Explosion." If candidates can't do their prospective jobs
better than you can, don't hire them.

Does the candidate
pass the "shopping-center test"? If you happened
to see a job candidate at a shopping center, would you rush over
and say hello? Or would you jump in your car and go to another
shopping center to avoid him or her? In a startup, you're going
to be working many long hours with employees, so you'd better
enjoy their company.

The Art of Raising Capital

Are you building a
real business? Call me a romantic, but businesses that fill
needs get funded. Those that don't, don't. This goes back
to the first question on this checklist: Are you making meaning?
Because if all you're trying to do is make money, you'll
probably fail to raise money, make money and make meaning.

Have you been
introduced to the source of capital? The process of raising
capital isn't a level playing field. You need to tilt the field
in your direction--first of all, by getting an introduction to the
firm by a trusted source. This is where your lawyer, accountant and
vendors can earn their keep. No investor ever funds a plan with a
cover letter that begins with "Dear Sir."

Is your act
together? In times of irrational exuberance, investors look
for reasons to do a deal. In times of irrational depression,
investors look for reasons not to do a deal. This is a depressed
time, so clean up your act. For example, if your employer thinks it
owns the technology you invented in your garage, resolve this issue
before looking for money.

Can you demonstrate
revenue? These days, investors will tell you they're
looking for proven teams, proven technology or proven markets.
There's one factor, however, that cuts through the hype, and
that's good, old-fashioned revenue. A company that has
significant revenue is always interesting, so focus on finishing
your product, and start selling. Maybe you won't have to raise
capital.

Do you acknowledge
your competition? "We have no competition" means
you're either serving an unattractive market or you're
clueless--and neither is conducive to raising money. A complete and
insightful analysis of your competition builds credibility. The
best way to present a competitive analysis is with a three-column
chart listing your competitor's name, what you can do that it
can't, and what it can do that you can't.

Partnering, Branding & Rainmaking

The Art of Partnering

How will the
partnership affect your spreadsheet? As a rule of thumb, if
a partnership doesn't enable you to increase sales or decrease
costs, you shouldn't do it.

Is your partnership
a win-win deal? Are both parties truly going to benefit, or
did you pull a fast one? Because if you did, rest assured that the
partnership won't last.

Is there an
"out" clause in the deal? At the beginning of a
partnership, you hope that it will last forever. Forever is a long
time, and if the terms of the partnership are too ironclad,
claustrophobia will develop. Include an easily exercisable out
clause to prevent this condition. It will help everyone relax and
focus on making the partnership work.

The Art of Branding

Have you created a
contagious product or service? The foundation of all great
brands is a great reality. Think cool, effective, distinctive,
disruptive, emotive, deep, indulgent and supported. This is a long
list, but the point is that branding is easy when you sell
something great. Branding is hard when you sell crap.

Can a mere mortal
get your product up and running right out of the box? The
best and cheapest form of branding is word-of-mouth. To achieve
this, customers must be able to use your product or service without
reading a manual--much less having a Ph.D. in applied physics.
Think of setting the clock on a VCR, and make sure what you sell is
easier to do.

Are you taking care
of your evangelists? Customers who spread the word for you
are called evangelists. Their compensation is the satisfaction of
making the world a better place. Embrace evangelists with inside
information, gifts and seminars because they will carry the battle
forward for you.

Can your employees
"talk the walk"? Let's assume you have a
meaningful product or service, and that you are "walking the
talk." Don't assume your employees can talk the walk.
Ensure that they can tell your story as well as you can, because a
brand is built one conversation at a time.

The Art of Rainmaking

Are you
"letting a hundred flowers blossom"? This is
stolen from Mao Zedong, but it's not clear that he walked the
ideology. Startups often see that people who were unintended
customers use their products and services in unintended ways.
Embrace this--don't freak out. These flowers are lighthouses
that illuminate the markets where you can achieve success. Flow
with the go.

Are you going after
agnostics instead of atheists? Selling to big, well-known
firms supposedly yields eye-opening numbers and credibility.
However, big companies seldom believe in the products and services
of startups. Spend some time on atheists, but focus on believers
and agnostics instead.

Are you sucking down
and sucking across? To make sales, most entrepreneurs suck
up to people with impressive titles like CEO, CIO, vice president
and director. Unfortunately, the higher you go in most
organizations, the thinner the air, and therefore the harder it is
to support intelligent life. Focus instead on the people who do the
real work: secretaries, administrative aides, customer service
people and technical support people. Suck down and suck across, and
you'll reach the real decision-makers--and differentiate
yourself from the clueless companies that only suck up.

Have you enabled
people to test drive your product or service? Instead of
bludgeoning people into becoming your customers, enable them to
test drive your product or service with demo versions or
samples--whatever it takes for them to try before they buy.

Have you provided a
safe, easy first step? Or are you trying to force
prospective customers to do something risky to try your product or
service? Provide a slippery adoption curve so you can suck people
in. Don't force them to throw out everything they've done
in the past or change a lot of infrastructure if you want them to
convert.

For even more information about the various "arts" of
entrepreneurship, refer to my book The Art of the Start. At the very least,
tear out this article, discuss it with your co-founders and
determine how you're doing, because doing--not wanting to do,
learning to do or planning to do--is the essence of
entrepreneurship.